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DHCP should be handled by the Windows Server in most cases. The GUI is generally easier to work with and in most cases, you have far more capability in the Windows DHCP server than in the DHCP server built in to the router.

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A good use case for putting it on the edge device is whether you might need connectivity without the server being available. For example -- suppose you are applying a patch to your Windows Server, and when you reboot it, it doesn't come back up properly. You head to your desk to do some web searches -- and find that your desktop has no Internet connection either, because the DHCP server is down, and you have no IP addresses. The same thing can happen if your server hardware dies, leaving the entire network without Internet, making it impossible to get to Email and the like.

Having said that, the Windows DHCP environment is really easy to use, and it can be replicated to a second server for backup capabilities. I would recommend leaving it there. Another good argument for leaving it on the Windows environment is that your Windows server is completely separate from your router/ISV. If you ever switch ISV's and need to get a new edge device, then you can simply configure the new device and be done with it.

To somewhat simplify what Bill said, there are pros and cons to each approach:

Using your Router as a DHCP server is usually set it and forget, however, if you switch to another router, it might have a different interface or lack certain DHCP features.

Using the Windows Server as a DHCP server has several benefits: it allows replication for redundancy (even across different version of Windows server) so even if you lose one server, you can still access the network, plus windows has a very comfortable export and import too for DHCP settings should you need to reinstall the OS.

In short, it's usually best to use your Windows Server, as long as it's not a single point of failure - make it redundant and bob's your uncle

I disagree with Bill's argument. Anyone who understands Windows networks understands the NECESSITY for DNS to be pointing ONLY to the DCs. If the DCs are down, DNS is down - and the logic for doing a web search is as well. Therefore, putting leaving DHCP on the router is pointless in this example. Move it to the server unless you have a good reason not to.

While I agree that in a domain controller setting your argument is correct.
Nowhere in the original question is the server defined as a domain controller, for all we know, this might be a simple workgroup environment.

Here is my thought about having a DHCP server. But in the end it's up to you how do you want to implement it. Everybody will have different thoughts about how would better. Now, when it comes to me, I rather use a router to deal with the DHCP, why? multiple reasons.

1- Need to add the DHCP service besides windows services, and maybe you might have more services installed.
2- Easy to manage.
2- The probabilities of having a server failure are higher than a typical router. Unless of course you have a backup DHCP server.
3- Easy to troubleshoot.
4- when an issue come up you might have to reboot the whole server which it takes time to boot up, opposite to a router.

Again, it doesn't matter how do you want to implement it as long you have reliability, like how faster can the device will boot up after a crash or something like that.

If you have a server, you (should) have a domain environment. There are way too many reasons to and very few not to. The vast majority of people with servers have domains. Citing an outlier and answering based on an outlier is not very helpful in my opinion. Not saying that it shouldn't be mentioned, but it should be acknowledged for what it is.

I've seen a lot of responses but i feel the need to chime in because i've been through that before.. First of, is this for a small network? Let's say a less than 20 users and a file server? then you'll be fine. If you have a medium-large size network then that'd be really a bad design, you could run your network but it's really bad design. Is your router just a router or it's doing security services too? If so and your network is medium to large definitely run it on windows, besides some router may not support all dhcp functions a windows server offers. You have options on both sides of the spectrum so whatever makes more sense to you, last time i check there's no dhcp policy out there fining people.. :-)

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